During the trailer launch of Zero, Shah Rukh Khan said that Salman Khan called him and suggested that he do Zero. He had said, “It's not true that he (Aanand L Rai) asked a lot of people... Salman had actually called me and said, ‘There’s this film, do it’”.
When The Quint got a chance to chat with the filmmaker Aanand L Rai, he told us he did pitch the film to Salman but after the script was developed, he never went back to him. He said he had this idea after Raanjhanaa.
But after the script developed he never went back to Salman Khan.
By the time he finished the story, he felt this was made for somebody like Shah Rukh Khan because it had a very strong love story and more than a love story, it had a character romancing with life, which he thought was SRK’s forte.
But when asked about why he chose such a superstar to play the role of Bauua, a vertically challenged man, the filmmaker sounded very confident about his choice.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)